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Sinn Féin Spokesperson for Social Protection John Brady TD has said an increase in the waiting time for Domiciliary Care Allowance contradicts a commitment made by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar that he was resolving the issue when he was Minister for Social Protection.

Teachta Brady said he will be writing to the new Minister Regina Doherty to ask her to act to address the problem.

Speaking this morning, Teachta Brady said:

“Back in May, during Leo Varadkar’s final engagement with the Committee as Minister, I questioned him about the failure of his Department to meet their target of processing DCA within six weeks with a success rate of 2%.

“At the time, Leo Varadkar informed the Committee that they were resolving the issue yet, almost three months later and the waiting times are actually worse. In May, the waiting times for the processing of the payment was 15 weeks, it now stands at 18 weeks.

“This week, I was contacted by a constituent who received a text message from the Department informing her of the 18 week waiting time for processing her application for DCA.

“This means that there are people caring for children with severe disabilities who need constant attention and full time care being left waiting five months before they receive a decision on their application. This is absolutely unacceptable.

“Whatever ‘resolving’ Minister Varadkar was doing back in May clearly it has had the opposite affect and the situation is now worse than before.

“I will be writing to the new Minister Regina Doherty in the hope that she will act to address this scandal. Whether additional staff has to be taken on in this unit or moved, this waiting time must reduce drastically and it cannot be allowed to get to these levels again.”